As the number of files stored in a system such as a variety of terminals becomes generally increased, much time and effort is required to search a particular file. To reduce the time and effort consumed, a technology for creating and storing a thumbnail of a still image or an image content is widely used. If a thumbnail-size image is created, the time and effort consumed to search the particular file may be reduced because thumbnails of multiple image contents may be displayed on one screen at the same time. In particular, a mobile terminal with a relatively low capacity and a relatively slow processing speed or a program which stores and manages multiple image files may have more advantages by using image thumbnails. Due to the advantages, a function of expressing an image file in a thumbnail size is used.
If the whole image file is reduced in a thumbnail size, a resolution, however, becomes small. If the thumbnail size becomes smaller, it may be difficult to identify the content of the image file. Accordingly, a technology for creating a thumbnail by cutting and reducing only a distinctive part included in the image file rather than that for creating a thumbnail by reducing the whole image file has been used. In brief, if a thumbnail is created with respect to only a specific region in the image file which shows the best content thereof, a reduction percent becomes relatively smaller rather than a thumbnail created by reducing the whole file image, and therefore, it is easy to identify the image. Furthermore, it is easy to understand the content of the image file only by checking the thumbnail image because the distinctive part of the image file is included in the created thumbnail.
However, a method for finding the distinctive part in an image file is now merely a method for finding an object in the image file by analyzing a saturation histogram, etc. and judging the found object as the distinctive part. In general, image content may include a person and an object and in the case, the object may have a high possibility of being a background or a surrounding environment. In short, the person is important in the image content but according to the conventional method, there are concerns that all, regardless of the person and the object, are judged to be important regions. Furthermore, if several entities including persons or objects exist, there is a problem to judge all as important regions, regardless of their significance. Accordingly, even though an important region is extracted and a thumbnail is created based on the important region, it is not easy to identify the content of the image file through the created thumbnail.
For the reason, a technology for extracting a substantially distinctive part among various entities in the image content, i.e., the most important part in the image file, and creating the thumbnail based on the most important part is required. In addition, a technology for allowing a user to feel interest by providing the extracted part for the user in several methods must be developed.